Judge: In Texas, Search Warrants Can Now Be Based on a "Prediction of a Future Crime"

Police in Parker County had been watching Michael Fred Wehrenberg's home for a month when, late in the summer of 2010, they received a tip from a confidential informant that Wehrenberg and several others were "fixing to" cook meth. Hours later, after midnight, officers walked through the front door, rounded up the people inside, and kept them in handcuffs in the front yard for an hour and a half.

The only potential problem, at least from a constitutional standpoint, was that the cops didn't have a search warrant. They got one later, before they seized the boxes of pseudoephedrine, stripped lithium batteries, and other meth-making materials, while the alleged meth cooks waited around in handcuffs, but by then they'd already waltzed through the home uninvited. They neglected to mention this on their warrant application, identifying a confidential informant as their only source of information.

Wehrenberg's lawyers argued during materials that the seized materials had been taken illegally and shouldn't be allowed as evidence. The motion was denied -- the trial court cited federal "independent source doctrine," which allows illegally seized evidence a third party told them about beforehand -- and Wehrenberg pleaded guilty to one count of possession and one count of intent to manufacture, getting five years in prison.

But it's the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that has the final say, and last week they agreed with the trial court. In a majority opinion, Judge Elsa Alcala wrote that, while Texas' "exclusionary rule" bans illegally seized evidence from trial, federal precedent dictates that it can be introduced if it was first confirmed by an independent source.

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Most search warrants are pro-forma garbage, this is par for the course. Corrupted search warrants (when the useless cops even bother with them), yet another violation of our rights. The gov’t constantly violates our rights.

They violate the 1st Amendment by caging protesters and banning books like “America Deceived II”.

This headline is a bit misleading, considering that a crime had already been committed: possessing all materials necessary to make methamphetamine. That the suspects involved merely had not put everything together to make the necessary chemical reactions yet is irrelevant because already harboring that stuff is a crime.The police had been watching these guys do the very same thing for a while, so I think it's fair to say that they would be engaging in the same activity with that stuff as they do every night.

Considering how large this drug manufacturing problem has gotten in the U.S. and how much it damages land, real estate, water, and sewer, I'd say this is a step in the right direction for methamphetamine cases, personally speaking. and I support law enforcement and the judicial system on this. Come on, Texas, set precedent for Southern California because we could sure use the help. This meth stuff is everywhere and me and everyone I know is sick of not having enough rights to get it out of our neighborhoods. It's ruining everything.

Joe Biden, then a U.S. Senator, told Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts during his confirmation hearings that he would be ruling on "implantable micro chips to track a person's every move" and "Pre Crime Brain Scanning". Here, watch for yourself...

That's fantastic! And as most serial killers are old white men I propose we start by searching the homes of the old white men serving in the Texas judicial system. We may find a body or two, who knows.

I was convicted in Parker County back in 2004 at the age of 17 for
delivery and possession. You would not believe the corruption back then
of the joint task force: CROSS TIMBERS. They were disbanded years
later after they were discovered to actually be cooking meth.

At
the time I did not live in Parker County, Cross Timbers wanted me to
become a snitch. They offered me an apartment and living cost if I
would enroll in the local HS and become an informant to find out where a
surge of MDMA was coming from. They had 4 kids at the school die that
year from overdoses. Much more to this whole story, it is unreal what
they were capable of.

Parker County, one of the most corrupt counties in Texas, guaranteed.

NOTE:
Since my teen years I have grown and learned much. Currently a
working, law abiding, well grounded individual that moves in a positive
direction and only wants the best for my family and country. Long live the tree of Liberty!

I was convicted in Parker County back in 2004 at the age of 17 for delivery and possession. You would not believe the corruption back then of the joint task force: CROSS TIMBERS. They were disbanded years later after they were discovered to actually be cooking meth.

At the time I did not live in Parker County, Cross Timbers wanted me to become a snitch. They offered me an apartment and living cost if I would enroll in the local HS and become an informant to find out where a surge of MDMA was coming from. They had 4 kids at the school die that year from overdoses. Much more to this whole story, it is unreal what they were capable of.

Control--BAAL, Moloch and kin will rule all, the Control will be total. I am sure the police and courts in Parker County believe they are doing the right thing. I am sure they are nice to their superiors, their families and 'substantial' citizens. But as they seek unjustified power over others they ARE NOT good people. If they decide you are a bad guy THEY get to make the decision you can not buy and sell.

Then why don't they use this "logic" at the TSA lines at the airport? But wait, targeting 20-something Muslim men, would be "profiling", and that (according to them) is wrong. The idiocy of those in power is laughable.

Everyone knows that Texas (the Soviet Union) is the most communist/socialist, Obama loving state in the union and it now shows. Rick Perry (Vladimir Lenin) is plotting to destroy the Constitution along with his secret ally (Obama). It has now only become obvious, they are starting with the 4th amendment.

It's almost as crazy as that nincompoop Ohio SC decision that said no one has a right to resist police who are illegally entering their dwelling. The Ohio legislature took care of that one pronto by statute.

Is it just laziness with all of these cops ignoring proper procedure or do they believe they're above the law? Do these judges even read the law any more or are they just making it up as the mood strikes? Ignoring the rule of law is a formula for tyranny.

I see both the right and left agitprop press machine is going bonkers over this, but nowhere did I see anything about either the ACLU or the Southern Poverty Law Center, two organizations in particular that defend civil rights and even human rights, regardless of what some Texas judge has to say about it.

I'm not bashing Texas judges in general, but I've got to say Texas always has been awfully long on the enforcement end, but shorter than a roof-nail in terms of justice. Given how conservatives everywhere are trying to play a brand new game of "grab-ass" in terms of their misbegotten sense of responsibility in terms of literally politicizing every little thing on earth.

Gays, for example, organize and push for the same civil rights as everyone else in America, and just as the conservative Christians did in the Sixties and even long prior to the beginning of the civil rights era, the long ghettozed group is now some kind of secret conspiracy to turn every able-bodied Christian boy and girl into a homosexual. It doesn't matter to them what scientific research has found in asking "how" homosexuality occurs and plays a role in human society. Since, to these long anti-science ideologues, science is "a matter of faith" and definitely not one of reason, experimentation and obervation, it seems obvious to them that protecting a couple of verses in the Bible is far more important than protecting the very lives of other human beings.

Then these well-intentioned people, believing bigotry is the answer for everything odd or different, pat themselves on the back for using "common sense". They'll cite Thomas Paine as if the British revolutionary and agitator was Elvis without even knowing that the very author of "Common Sense" was jailed for daring to point-out all the errors and contradictions in the Bible by people in the 18th Century. Look: It's the 21st Century and yet the ignorant continue to bully and push people into zones of conflict both unnecessary and fruitless.

I'm not defending methamphetimine. That's a particularly nasty drug. Aryan Nations and other neo-Nazi groups have made a cottage industry in Texas and the Midwest off manufacture of crystal. And obviously, police departments are not beynd acting-out as the episode here amply illustrates.

Too bad the judiciary is being politicized. Too bad we're now seeing right-wing social engineering. Too bad we're seeing activist judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, justices who have gone feral in terms of sticking to the letter, not the spirit, of the Constitution.

Anyone here ever heard of the political and legal concept of "disinterestedness"? Especially within the judiciary, but also in the legislative bodies, the federal versions thereof that are now less popular than dog poop because of excessive partisanship and a refusal to compromise, "disinterestedness" means politicians are charged with actually representing the people impartially and not giving-in to special interests.

@dexteroustext What exactly are drug users doing to your community? I find it interesting that people want to wage war on drugs in the first place. The mere prohibition of drugs creates almost all crime and tax payer related expenses enforcing these draconian laws. Legalizing all drugs would destroy the drug cartels and eradicate most crime. We could dismantle the DEA and all drug related law enforcement agencies. Tax drugs like we tax alcohol and cigarettes.

@rgharry2 Please wake up from your own Blair Witch Project; it's just you and a flashlight, hunkered over a laptop. Even bigger than the fantasy conspiracy theories that justify your fears of current society is the REALITY that meth is tearing up this country's resources and contributing to the poor economy. Do some real research, not the usual tying of a million bits of rumor and symbology together to justify a horrible end. Meth is the biggest evil of our generation and it requires new laws because the ones we have in place now aren't doing enough.

@readyforanythingSince the victim admitted to guilt i'll bet this case stopped there and will go no further. Not only that the supreme court gets to pick and choose the cases it takes. They won't touch this with a 10 foot pole. even if they do this guy will be out and retired before they rule.

@jastpeelIf you carefully research that phrase, you will quickly discover that Lenin never said that. It actually didn't appear anywhere until the 1940's in reference to Hitler's Germans. Lenin died in 1924.

@gordonhilgers We're long past the days of neo-Nazi/Aryan nations being the big, bad dealers of destruction with methamphetamine. Open up your eyes and nose--this stuff is EVERYWHERE. I estimate 2/3-3/4 of the service class is fully addicted across America. For every one pound of this stuff produced in apartments, hotels, stores, and cars, five pounds of toxic waste is put into the real estate, water, and soil, and some of these chemicals have half-lives of 50 years. It's destroying sewer systems and water treatment facilities, too. Please wake up.

@dexteroustext you seem to have a real hard on about meth. Who in your family destroyed their life? No one has the kind of fanaticism with out personal lose. either that or you are a cop that hates losing cases for not following procedure.